Fallen Out Of Favour
by EbonyBeach
Summary: When Aragorn returns to Imladris after seven months, desperate to see Arwen, there is a shocking surprise for him in store. What has gone on while he's been away? Will his life ever be the same again? Better than it sounds, I hope. Please just give it a g
1. Chapter 1

This is a romance/angst story I thought up when on holiday. I hope you like it, it's not great, but ok. HanaX ps. This Aragorn isnt exactly in character for how I usually write him (if that makes sense) but bear with me, he is on the speedy road to his usual [me]self.  
  
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Chapter one  
  
Aragorn approached the house of Elrond from the back. He was not a fan of massive welcome home parties and preferred quieter, more personal greetings. That was why he was so eager to see Arwen. He had been gone for seven months and after the first hour of his departure, his heart had begun to ache. He missed her so much, longed to hold her once more, look deep into her intoxicating eyes, taste the passion of her lips on his -  
  
"Aragorn, my son, at last you are returned to us." The Heir of Isildur looked up to see Lord Elrond striding towards him with, Aragorn was grateful to see, only one other Elf.  
  
"My Lord." He bowed.  
  
"There is no need for that," Elrond replied smiling. He took Aragorn's shoulder and righted him again, looking deeper than his eyes first suggested. He scanned the bruises and cuts on the Man's face, and the bloodstained bandage on his arm. "How are you?"  
  
"I am well, thank you. Just a few minor scrapes, that's all. And yourself? How is Imladris?"  
  
"My people and I are well also. A few exceptions," he added almost as if to himself, "but they do not need worrying over now." Then he said more loudly, "Come, Estel, you need food and drink. I have prepared a -"  
  
"If you don't mind, my Lord, I am actually quite tired," Aragorn interrupted. "I hvae ridden hard and non-stop from dawn until dusk. There were bandits on my back," he explained.  
  
"Oh well, in that case I bid you goodnight." He kissed his foster son on the forehead and took the reins from his hand. "Balo," he commanded his companion, "see that this horse is fed and watered. Take him to my personal stables, Mila'n will groom him and lay him in the warmest bed possible. Go." The Elf departed with a swift bow. "I will see you in the morning, Elessar."  
  
As Elrond turned to leave Aragorn said, "Where is your daughter Arwen, my Lord? I desire to speak with her." Unbidden, her beautiful image came into his head, as it had done every day and night for the long months he had been away. He realised speaking with her was not all he desired to do.  
  
It seemed that as soon as he mentioned the Elf Maiden's name, Elrond stiffened, but when he turned back his face was as unreadable as ever.  
  
Taking a deep breath he said, "The thing you call Arwen has fallen out of our favour. She is no longer my daughter." His tone was pure ice.  
  
To say Aragorn was shocked was to put it mildly. "But... but why?" This had to be a joke, a wind up for his return. Sooner or later Arwen would emerge out of the trees laughing and hug her father, telling him to stop teasing her love.  
  
But she did not.  
  
Elrond sighed. "She is no longer considered respectable. She had dishonoured her people, her family, me. I cannot simply forgive her and welcome her back with open arms. She has gone too far this time."  
  
Aragorn couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. It was outrageous. Obvioulsly Elrond had overreacted. "What could she posssibly have dont to make you, her own father, disown her like that? She is your Evenstar, your Úndomiel. She is bold and bright and the most beautiful creature that walks this earth."  
  
"She was all those things," Elrond dismissed coldly. "She was my daughter, my babe, my sun, moon and stars. But things change. People change. As to what she did..... I could not even find the words to describe such trechary. If you want to know, I suggest you ask her."  
  
"W-Where is she?" Aragorn was scared now, of what could possibly have happened, but also of Elrond. He face was so stern, so different, flesh turned to rock. He looked so tired and a hatred stirred in his features, so subtle that he must have been using all his power to conceal it. For an Elf to be angry, especially one such as Elrond, something had to be seriously wrong.  
  
"Truth to tell," he said slowly, "I do not know. I permitted her stay in Imladris but not in my house. I have not seen her for five moons or more. I will not see her now." He shuddered ever so slightly. "Go if you will, but I warn you, it is not nice."  
  
He spun round and was gone into the night. Aragorn was now extremely worried. Of course he still wanted to see the lady he loved, but he had to admit that Elrond's words had made him wary. He could not even begin to imagine what she had reportedly done, what had made the Lord of Rivendell disown the previously most precious thing to him in all the world.  
  
Still, he wanted, needed to see her. He had not been this close to her in seven months, so close he could smell her very soul in the air, so close he could feel her heart beating inside his chest. So close and yet so far. He had to find her, to find out what had really happened. He had to know.  
  
************  
  
I promise you this is going somewhere (not to the bin, hopefully), somewhere emotional and dramatic. Somewhere fluffy!  
  
Please tell me if you would like to visit those places! Hana X  
  
If you don't want a holiday right now and hated every bit of the holiday brochure, I would like it if you politely said so and gave me advice on how to improve. I don't like flames, they make me feel sad : ( !! 


	2. Chapter 2

Hope u like it! Thanx for all your reviews, about 2 weeks later I actually received them! I'm glad this sites working again, Oh how I missed it so! lol, well, not that much! Anyways, enjoy! Hana X  
  
Chapter 2  
  
It took him no longer than twenty minutes to seek out what he was looking for. He knew Arwen so well that in some ways they even thought like each other, and that's why he knew where to look for her.  
  
He found her in one of their childhood haunts, a huge treehouse they had built together. It was made of strong and supple wood, and had a roof able to survive any winter. Luckily it was now mid June, so the weather was warm. He hated the thought of Arwen out in the cold all by herself. He hated the thought of anything bad happening to her, and knew he would hate himself if anything did. It was in his nature to be protective. He presumed that came from his father's ancestry, a line of kings looking after their people at home and their soldiers in battle.  
  
What was he doing, think about irrelevant things when he was so close to what he sought? Mentally bracing himself for the worst he began to climb the ladder, half slowing each step in trepidation, half rushing in need to set eyes upon her.  
  
However his apprehension was for nothing, as she wasn't there when he entered the one roomed elven nest. The remnants of a meal lay on the table, what looked like bread and butter. There were clothes strewn over the bed in the corner and the whole place had the look of Arwen. It was undoubtedly where she had been living, but where was she now?  
  
"Who's there?" Came a melodious voice suddenly from the behind the back wall, a voice so pure that it made his heart leap to his mouth. She was here, on the balcony they had added.  
  
Not knowing exactly how to introduce himself in words, he walked quietly through the room and emerged in the warm outside air once more. And there she sat, all his visions of heaven rolled into one being.  
  
"Aragorn?" She blinked through the dim evening. "Is that you?"  
  
"It is I," he replied, kissing her hand. He was a little puzzled by the fact she didn't stand to hug or kiss him, just sat huddled up, her arms round her knees. It looked an awkward position to be in.  
  
"How was your journey?" She asked, perfectly politely, but her voice held something like sadness and she did not smile.  
  
"It was fine. But how are you? Your father said -"  
  
"My father? You have spoken already to my father? Then you will know the full story I presume." Her voice was not cold, but oddly cheerful.  
  
"I think not. Maybe that is his story I have heard, but I do not understand any of it. Arwen, what is going on? He said you'd done something terrible and that he has disowned you. Surely this cannot be true!"  
  
She turned away and looked into the dusk of night. A small laugh escaped her throat. "Oh Estel, you have been away too long. My father, sorry, Lord Elrond as perhaps I now should call him, did not lie. He was right to do what he did."  
  
"But what did you do? This makes no sense."  
  
She stood suddenly and walked back inside, all the while keeping her back to him as though hiding something. He followed, completely perplexed. He really did not like whatever was going on. All he wanted to do was hold her and kiss her, but he needed to know what had happened. After all, Elrond was like a father to him, and for him and Arwen to have fallen out was like Aragorn's family being torn apart. It did not just affect them but him also.  
  
She adopted the same sitting position on the bed and gestured for him to sit on a chair. He obliged.  
  
"Do not look at me like I am a little child you need to worry about. I am not sick or mentally ill or anything else they tell me I am. I am still me."  
  
She lit a lamp and her face was bathed in orange light. Aragorn gasped and felt his throat constrict in terror. She was..... he couldn't describe it. She was still as beautiful and breath taking as the very first time he laid eyes upon her, but her eyes.... he could not bear to look into them for all the empty loneliness that resided there. She looked so tired, dark circles under her eyes. It appeared as if she had been tortured and left for weeks to wilt in solitude and pain.  
  
"Arwen, your face..... What happened?"  
  
"Nothing happened."  
  
"But you look so..... so terrible."  
  
"I thank you, you do not look too great yourself."  
  
"No, I didn't mean it like that." He reached out a hand to her arm but she flinched away. "Please, Arwen," he begged, "tell me everything. I want to help. I can't bear to see you like this."  
  
"Oh but you could bear to see me seven months ago and still leave? You could bear to tell me you loved me and then go without a trace?" She was scowling and her voice dripped venom which stung his very soul.  
  
"Arwen, I still -"  
  
"Don't!" She said fimly. "I don't want to hear what you have to say. You know, I have been imagining what this day would be like since the second you left." She gave an ironic laugh. "Funny how things never go to plan, don't you think?" Suddenly she stood up and Aragorn almost yelled in horror. "Obviously you do. This," she stroked her rounded stomach, "is what never went to plan. This is what has made sure I have been cast out of everything I know. This thing inside me is what I love and what I hate, what I desperately want and yet what I wish had never been created. This is what you left me to deal with, all by myself. This is life, Aragorn, my life, and I hate it so much sometimes I go to bed wishing, hoping I won't wake up in the morning. Every minute of every hour of every day I think about how everything used to be and will it so much to be like that again. My father, my family, you by my side, on my side, with me. But then I come back to reality and realise that I'm living on a false hope, something that will never happen. It can never go back to how it was. I have brought this upon myself, and now I have to live with it. I was foolish enough to think I loved you, and believe you when you said you loved me too. I deserve nothing more than what I have and have nothing more than I deserve." She stopped and inhaled deeply. No tears stained her face. She had learned long ago how to block out the pain.  
  
Aragorn was stunned. He had just received the biggest shock of his life. He realised there were tears on his cheeks, but did not wipe them away. Every word she spoke cut him like a knife, the way she was so emotionless, so cold. But what got him deepest was that he had put all this on to her. He was the cause of everything she had just said. He had hurt her so badly that he wanted to rip his own heart out.  
  
"Arwen," he breathed finally, "I am so, so sorry. I know you probably don't want to hear it, but it is one of the truest words I have ever spoken. All this is my fault, I-"  
  
"Your fault?" She laughed coldly. "Oh no, none of this is your fault. Did you force me to make love to you the night you were due to leave? Did you tie me down and rape me? Did you etch the words 'I love you' so deeply onto my brain that they blinded my vision so completely I did not realise what was going on until it was too late? No? Then this is not your fault. The blame lies entirely with me."  
  
She sat back down and rubbed the small of her back, shutting him off as though they were in two separate worlds.  
  
"Arwen," Aragorn said, when he had taken in all the words she had just spoken and re-read them over and over until they made no sense whatsoever. "Arwen, listen to me."  
  
She looked up slowly and smiled. "Yes?"  
  
"Arwen, the blame cannot lie with you because there is none. Surely a gift as precious as what we have been given is not a burden, but a joy. We-"  
  
"We?" She was staring at him as if he was mad. "Estel, there is no 'we'. There is only me and you. I only wish there was a 'we'. Oh, there I go again, dreaming my life away! You'd think I'd have learned by now, wouldn't you?" She chuckled to herself.  
  
Ignoring her completely he said, "this child is a gift. It may have been unexpected but it is still a wonderful thing. Surely your father-"  
  
"Aragorn, what is the most precious thing in all the world to Elves?"  
  
He had to think quickly at her sudden interruption. He did not like the game she was playing. "The most precious thing to Elves in the world is life."  
  
"Precisely."  
  
"Arwen, what are you getting at?"  
  
"Do you not think that if the most treasured gift in all of creation is life, that the opposite, most despised thing, apart from death by choice, is a life created in a fleeting moment with no love involved at all? No second thought to the life being made? When my father found out what I had done, that I was expecting an illigitimate child, I felt so small at the way he looked at me that I knew I was getting what I deserved. I do not hate him for that, because he was right in what he said. I am 'selfish and egotistical'. I am 'disrespectful'. I am 'dirty, disgusting and a disgrace to the good name of the Elves'."  
  
Her voice momentarily cracked with emotion and for the first time that night, Aragorn saw pain and terrible grief cross her features. For a minute she looked as if she was going to cry, but she didn't. She kept it bottled up inside, letting it slowly eat away her former happy, loving and beautiful self.  
  
"Did you not tell him the child was mine? He would not have been as horrible to you then, knowing it was not five minutes of passion with a stranger but a bond for life between two people in love?"  
  
"Was it? Were we those two people in love?" She shook her head sadly but continued before he could interrupt. "There was no point blackeneing your name. Either way I would have been thrown away, I did not wish to take you with me. Even now, after all that has happened, I would not wish that on you. Whether you believe it or not, I am still hopelessly in love with you. I would not hurt you if my life depended on it. I could not hurt you. I am not angry at you for saying that you loved me, because I believed it and that has been what's kept me going through all the dark days I've faced alone."  
  
A tear traced its path down her nose, and another down her cheek. "Just your image in my head has been enough to guide me away from the deep depressing corners of my mind to a place where I am temporarily blinded by such a bright, warm light that all the pain just disappears. Just the sweet rememberance of the taste of your lips on mine has been enough to tear my heart in two, but not in the way the darkness would have it. Just the touch of your skin and the warmth of your soul has been enough to keep me going, your voice taking me to a place where there is nothing but love; no hate, no grief, no sorrow or despair. Just the sweet memory of being with you has kept me alive."  
  
She was crying freely now, tears fighting their way down her face. "Each night I dream of you, after singing myself to sleep to escape the endless torture of the waking world. And do you know what I sing?" She shook her head and laughed softly. "It is such a silly song that I never understood when my mother used to sing it to me. But now it makes sense, so much so I even changed the words." She closed her eyes and began singing soflty, as if to herself.  
  
"There is a castle on a cloud  
  
I like to go there in my sleep  
  
Nobody shouts or talks to loud  
  
Not in my castle on a cloud.  
  
*  
  
There's not a thing that I can't be  
  
It is a place where I am me  
  
I can be strong and stand up proud  
  
When I'm in my castle on a cloud  
  
*  
  
There is a ranger all in white  
  
Holds me and sings a lullaby  
  
He's nice to see and he's soft to touch  
  
He says 'Arwen, I love you very much'  
  
*  
  
There is a place where no one's lost  
  
There is a place where no one cries  
  
Crying at all is not allowed  
  
Not in my castle on a cloud."  
  
The last note still rang in the air as she let out a huge sob and collapsed onto the bed, crying so hard her whole body shook.  
  
She wanted so hard just to be loved, just to have someone on her side. Aragorn had heard every word like she said as if they had been engraved on his heart since birth. Some of it was even the same for him, how she described her memories of him helping her through the pain. It was the same when he had been on the darkest paths, past the black gates of Mordor itself, a place so consumed by evil that the very air threatened to wipe out all memories of anything good in life. But it seemed Arwen was so pure of heart, so beautiful and loving, that nothing, not even Sauron himself, could erase the deep imprint such as she had made on Aragorn's soul. He would never be without her. And neither would she.  
  
And so, wrapping his strong arms around her weeping body, he held he so tightly it was as if he was holding her together, which he actually was. She did not flinch away this time, but clung to him, the last chance she would ever get of finding happiness once more.  
  
"Arwen," he whispered to her silken hair, "Úndomiel, I should have told you this every day from the moment I first met you. I should have told you all those times we met in secret. I should have told you that night we made love. I should have told you..... Arwen, I should have stayed so I could tell you every minute of every day. I should have told you.... I love you, more than I could ever say. I am so sorry for all the pain I have caused you, I have hurt you so badly it has hurt me too, deeper than you could ever know. I..... I love you....."  
  
No more words were needed. Aragorn knew he had so much more apologising to do. He had to make her understand that he was sorrier than she could imagine. He had to affirm to her so strongly the belief that she was loved so utterly and completely she need never feel pain again. He had to love her, honour, cherish and protect her with all the strength he possessed.  
  
But first of all, he simply had to be there. And as she cried on, he held her tighter until he was sure she would break. And still the tears came, and still she needed him more. There was no life without him, like there were no rainbows without rain, no life without light, no love without hope.  
  
Estel was her hope, her one chance of survival. The calm after the storm, the glowing embers after the roaring blaze, the happy ending she had always dreamed of. Estel was Estel, and she loved him more now than she had ever before, so much so that it physically hurt.  
  
She no longer needed dreams to transport her to her castle on a cloud. She was already there.  
  
***************  
  
And the verdict is.......?? Was it surprising/not surprising/ fluffy/ not fluffy enough for you? Plz tell me!!! Hana X  
  
ps the song Castle On A Cloud comes from Les Miserables, but I don't know who wrote it so I'm sorry who ever you are, its a really great song! Obviously I changed some of the lyrics, but its such a pretty tune if you've ever heard it, really minor and so sad! 


	3. Author's Note

I've had quite a few reviews with people telling me this story can't possibly happen and that they're confused, and I'm writing this to put things my way.  
  
First of all, I know it wouldn't really happen but I'm not following the books or movies purposefully, just borrowing the characters and places, and doing with them what I want.  
  
Secondly, it was just an idea I came up with on holiday, so I'm sorry if you didn't like it but isn't all fanfic just for fun? I just had an idea that it would be emotional and something good to write that I did it and here it is.  
  
Lastly, if you're confused about Elrond disowning her etc., I thought long and hard for a reason why he would, and came up with this one solution. Again, I know this wouldn't happen and my reasoning (about life being the most precious thing to Elves) was MY reasoning, so it may not have been Tolkein's. It's the only way I thought (though maybe I was wrong, I don't know) and I did try to explain it in chapter 2.  
  
So I'm sorry if I confused/upset anyone, I just wrote this for the hell of it really, and hey, I'm not forcing you to read it so if you don't like it you don't have to.  
  
Hana X  
  
p.s. Even though I got those seemingly bad reviews, I am really grateful and thank you all SO much, because without them I wouldn't have written this and everyone else would be confused. Thanks, its really helpful. 


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